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Christmas market attacker Anis Amri fled Germany through the Netherlands on a budget coach service with a handgun in his backpack, investigators said yesterday, as police arrested his suspected "contact" in Berlin.

Amri, 24, is believed to have travelled through the Netherlands after fleeing the scene of the Berlin Christmas market massacre, in which he killed 12 people and injured dozens of others.

He took a bus run by the Flixbus company from the Sloterdijk station in Amsterdam to Lyons and evaded police attention while carrying a handgun on his travels, according to Italian news agency ANSA.

The Tunisian terrorist was eventually shot dead by an Italian police officer in Milan, having passed unchallenged through Europe's borders.

Investigators said a Dutch sim card found in Amri's backpack after he was killed was from a batch given away for free in the cities of Breda, Nijmegen and Zwolle, between Dec 20 and 22.

A trail of devastation is left behind in Berlin, GermanyCredit:
Markus Schreiber

His route suggests that the gunman fled to the Netherlands in a bid to throw police off his scent as he escaped from Germany.

Italian intelligence sources said the new details of his movements confirm that he was "a lone wolf in search of support and shelter" who no longer served a purpose to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil), which claimed the attack.

The disclosure came as German police said they had arrested a 40-year-old Tunisian suspected associate of Amri in Berlin, in an apparent breakthrough in the investigation.

A mobile phone left in the lorry Amri used to carry out the Berlin attack listed the suspect, who has not been named, as one of his contacts.

French police had previously said Amri took a night bus from Nijmegen in the Gheldria region near Germany, to Lyons. From there he travelled on to Chambery, Turin and finally Milan.

In another development, police in south-west France have arrested a man suspected of planning an attack on New Year's Eve, a police source told Reuters.

The suspect, who was arrested in Cugnaux, west of Toulouse, "is known to [police] services and is suspected of wanting to carry out an attack on December 31," the source said. As recently as last May, Amri had featured in an Italian anti-terror department list of suspects, which described him as a "dangerous Islamist".

Both Italy and Germany were aware of Amri up to seven months before the Berlin attack. It comes as Italy stepped up its anti-terror measures ahead of New Year’s Eve, for fear of revenge attacks over Amri's death.

Armoured vehicles and paratroopers have been deployed next to the Colosseum, while Italian search and rescue helicopters have been armed with machine guns.

Anis Amri

"The investigations indicate that [the suspected associate] he may have been linked to the attack," Germany's federal prosecutor's office said in a statement.

Prosecutors have until Thursday evening to determine whether the case against the 40-year-old is strong enough for them to seek a formal arrest warrant. That would allow them to keep him in custody pending possible charges.

Investigators are trying to determine whether Amri had a support network in planning and carrying out the attack, and in fleeing Berlin. They are also trying to piece together the route he took from Berlin to Milan.